In today's #vatnik soup I'll introduce yet another "independent journalist". She's an American Canadian conspiracy theorist and propagandist, Eva Bartlett. Eva is part of the "may be partially or wholly under the editorial control of the Russian government" gang.
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Like so many of these so-called journalists, she started as a Palestine activists, and she was a campaigner for the International Solidarity Movement. Bartlett visited Gaza several times, reported about the situation there in her blog.
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She also did speaking tours around North America. Eventually she moved on to Syrian civil war.
These days Bartlett is very much in the same group of al-Assad and Putin apologists as the Grayzone blogger Max Blumenthal, Sonja van den Ende and Vanessa Beeley.
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She is one of the most popular propagandists of this group, and her videos have been viewed millions of times. Bartlett rose to notoriety in 2016, when she was doing some Russia and Syria sponsored reporting from Syria. She stated in a video that there's "overwhelming ...
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...support" for president al-Assad in Syria, and that the rescue organization White Helmets was Western propaganda and that "no one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them". She accused the NGO of recycling actors and footage.Ironically she's done this exact thing in her reports.5/10
In the same footage she suggested that the al-Quds hospital bombing was propaganda and never occurred. This message was of course spread by RT and Sputnik. Syrian government also staged a discussion between Bartlett and the UN.
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All of these statements were naturally lies and were debunked by several outlets. For example, the advocacy group The Syria Campaign and the US-based think tank Atlantic Council have debunked many of Bartlett's lies about the White Helmets.
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As history has shown, these "independent journalists" often support most totalitarian regimes around the world: in 2017 Eva visited North Korea, and suggested that most of the misery and poverty in there are a result of American imperialism.
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Since Apr, 2022, Bartlett has been reporting on Ukraine, sometimes selling her coverage of the events to RT. In Jul, 2022, she was one the speakers at the International Public Tribunal on Ukraine, a propaganda event to for defaming Ukraine and Ukrainians.
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Eva Bartlett has lived in Russia since 2019. She has 48k followers on Youtube and almost 130k followers on Twitter, which makes her a relatively popular pro-Russian propagandist.
In today’s Vatnik Soup REBREW, I’ll reintroduce an American political commentator and pro-Kremlin propagandist, Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson). He’s best known for his promotion of crazy conspiracy theories and for his support of authoritarian regimes around the world.
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Tucker’s career spans decades, but he’s also been very active in recent years, so a lot has happened since our previous soup on him, which can be found here:
Once described as “the most powerful conservative in America”, Tucker has now fully transformed into a grifting conspiracy theorist and propagandist willing to work for whoever pays him the most. It’s unclear whether Tucker truly believes his endless conspiracy theories or…
3/24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll cover the agenda-setting and flood of disinformation that spread on X and other platforms right after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s far from the first or last time a tragedy has been weaponized for political purposes.
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Every major political event, especially those involving violence, attracts massive attention. In the immediate aftermath, reliable information is scarce, making it highly vulnerable to both coordinated and improvised disinformation campaigns.
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As I’ve mentioned in my previous soups and lectures, in disinformation campaigns, being first with a narrative is crucial, as people often remember the first version best — psychology studies show it sets the mental schema, and later updates rarely overwrite it.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce American social media personality David Freeman, AKA Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman). He’s best known for spreading political disinformation on X and shamelessly sucking up to Trump, Putin, and other authoritarian leaders.
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David is a textbook example of someone profiting from MAGA grievance politics. He uses extreme, provocative language to farm engagement on X and never hesitates to flatter anyone who might give him more exposure — or money.
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But David wasn’t always like this. At some point, in his mid-40s, he even tried a real job: he trained to become a cop. He spent three years with the Metro Transit PD, but after that he either got fired or quit, and never looked back.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian-Estonian businessman, Oleg Ossinovski. He is best-known for his deep ties to Russian rail and energy networks, shady cross-border dealings, and for channeling his wealth into Estonian politics.
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Oleg made his fortune via Spacecom Trans & Skinest Rail, both deeply tied to Russia’s rail system. Most of this is through Globaltrans Investments PLC, a Cyprus-based firm with 62% held via Spacecom and tens of millions in yearly profits.
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Ossinovski’s Russian-linked ventures made him Estonia’s richest man in 2014, with an estimated fortune of ~€300M. His business empire stretched across railways, oil via Alexela shares, and Russian bitumen imports from Help-Oil, a supplier to the Defense Ministry.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Swiss/French writer, Alain Bonnet, aka Alain Soral (@officielsoral). He’s best known for his rabid antisemitism and for his pathetic support for all the worst authoritarian regimes from Russia to North Korea.
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Alain’s childhood was problematic, as his father has been characterized as a “narcissistic pervert” who beat his children and did jail time for fraud. Alain himself has said he was “programmed to be a monster.” Born Alain Bonnet, he took the stage name of his sister,…
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… actress Agnès Soral. She wasn’t too happy about this, commenting “How would you like to be called Agnès Hitler?”. Like many grifters, he became a pick-up/seduction artist writer, à la late Gonzalo Lira, writing books and even making a B-movie, “Confessions d’un dragueur”.
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